Two men sentenced in Rocky Boy stabbing

Two more men have been sentenced for charges stemming from a brutal stabbing on Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation June 19, 2010.

Austin Joseph Denny, 23, was sentenced in federal District Court in Great Falls to 54 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay a $110 assessment.

Vernon Marshall Young, 22, was sentenced to 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay a $110 assessment.

The two men were ordered to pay $1,898.40 in restitution.

After a three-day trial in the court in Great Falls in January, each man was found not guilty of assault resulting in serious injury and found guilty of simple assault and assault with a dangerous weapon.

Thompson Densmore St. Pierre, 21 at the time, who previously pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon, was sentenced in January to 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay a $100 special assessment. That sentence was to run after a 30-month sentence imposed in November 2010 following St. Pierre pleading guilty to a Feb. 4, 2010 assault.

St. Pierre was found guilty on March 5 of committing a theft on Rocky Boy on March 20, 2010. Sentencing for that offense is scheduled for June 28.

Young, Denny and St. Pierre were arrested by Rocky Boy police following the June 19, 2010 assault at a residence on the reservation.

A witness told officers that St. Pierre had become agitated earlier that night while he, the witness and several others had been drinking. St. Pierre had said the victim had attacked St. Pierre's cousin. St. Pierre came up with a plan to break into the victim's residence and beat him, the witness said.

The witness said he was forced to go along with the others, and saw St. Pierre go to the house with a bottle and a hammer and kick in the door.

The victim told officers that he was awoken in the middle of the night by sounds in the house, then was startled when the light in his bedroom was turned on, and he saw someone standing over him.

Two other men wearing hooded sweatshirts with bandanas over their mouths started stabbing him, he said.

That group left the room, but two other men, then entered and attacked him again, including breaking a bottle over his head and stabbing him with it.

Another resident of the house, woken up by the noise, called the Rocky Boy Police Department, which responded.

An officer chased down two of the males in a nearby field — apprehending St. Pierre and another individual. Another officer found the three other males in a nearby home — Denny, Young and another individual. Officers recovered two knives from the truck and found blood on the passenger door and a hammer outside the truck on the ground. Officers confiscated the arrested males' clothing, a knife sheath, the hammer found outside the truck, and broken glass bottles found in the victim's room, which were used to stab the victim.

The victim was taken to a local hospital, where he was treated for multiple stab wounds on his upper chest and cuts to his arms, head and chest, which also caused nerve damage to one arm or hand.